It’s an all NL West World Series. The Astros have now won two pennants, one in each league. They are the only franchise in the modern era to win a pennant in each league. Milwaukee has represented each league in the Series, but those were two different franchises.

These are two of the three best teams this year, along with Cleveland. This should be a good World Series.

Saw something that stated the Dodgers are now tied with the Cardinals for third in pennants won with 19. The Giants are second at 20, and of course we know who is first.

By my count however, the Dodgers are now tied with the Cardinals alright, but for second place with 23. The Giants are third at 22. These numbers are attained by going back to each franchise’s origins, and counting up pennants for what was recognized as the major leagues at the time.

The Dodgers have the 19 modern era NL pennants, plus the franchise won the 1889 American Association pennant, and NL pennants in 1890, 1899 and 1900.

The Cardinals have won 19 modern era NL flags, and won four straight AA pennants from 1885-88.

The Giants have won 20 modern era pennants, and also won NL flags in 1888 and 1889.

There have been three eras where the Cardinals and Dodgers combined to dominate baseball. The franchises won pennants from 1885-1890, with the Cardinals getting the AA flags from ’85-88, then Brooklyn winning the 1889 AA pennant. The Brooklyn franchise then moved to the National League in 1890 and won another pennant.

In the 1940s, the two franchises combined to win 7 of the 10 NL pennants, 4 by the Cards and 3 by the Dodgers.

From 1963-1968, the two franchises won each of the six NL flags, splitting them at 3 apiece. Plus each franchise won 2 of the 3 World Series they played in the ’60s.

Some may not know that the NL teams do not recognize their American Association results. The Dodgers start their history in 1890; the Cards in 1892, when they joined the NL. For that reason, the Cardinals celebrated 2017 as their 125th anniversary.

We have commented on that from time to time. I disagree as well. I believe the prevailing thought at one time was teams that started in the American Association did include that as part of their “official” history but then that history was not as formalized as today. My dad had some old books on Cardinal history, one by J. Roy Stockton, and it started with the AA teams.

Bob Broeg’s 1981 book “Redbirds” is subtitled “A Century Of Cardinals’ Baseball”, and starts with the 1882 team.

Even today sites such as retrosheet and baseball-reference list the 1880’s as the beginning of the Cardinals and Dodgers franchises. The organizations themselves seem to be out of touch with their own history.

Not recognizing the AA was an MLB decision, not made by the individual teams. There were four AA-NL teams involved and all follow the exclusion.

As I have written about in the past, it is a very murky area. When it benefits them, MLB recognizes individual player results from that period while not acknowledging their team results. Makes no sense.

I’ve discussed it before with Cardinals folks. The disconnect is understood, but my take is that those who get it don’t have the power and those who have the power have other matters on their priority lists.

If I think about it, I will try to ask Bill DeWitt, Jr. for his take when the team HOF committee meets again. It would take someone like him for this to have any chance of being formally reevaluated by MLB. At a minimum, the Dodgers, Reds and Pirates would also have to be on board. How the other 26 teams would react to being put farther behind the leaders in world championships could be another roadblock.

They will get Hickey as their pitching coach, trade one or more of their young sluggers for Chris Archer, sign or trade for an elite closer, acquire several elite set up men, and probably go after another big OF bat. Heck, they might trade for Stanton. They have one of the most aggressive front office’s out there.

Not recognizing the AA was an MLB decision, not made by the individual teams. There were four AA-NL teams involved and all follow the exclusion.
As I have written about in the past, it is a very murky area. When it benefits them, MLB recognizes individual player results from that period while not acknowledging their team results. Makes no sense.
I’ve discussed it before with Cardinals folks. The disconnect is understood, but my take is that those who get it don’t have the power and those who have the power have other matters on their priority lists.
If I think about it, I will try to ask Bill DeWitt, Jr. for his take when the team HOF committee meets again. It would take someone like him for this to have any chance of being formally reevaluated by MLB. At a minimum, the Dodgers, Reds and Pirates would also have to be on board. How the other 26 teams would react to being put farther behind the leaders in world championships could be another roadblock.

Great information Brian. I can understand other club’s fragile egos being hurt by adding more history to some of their rivals, even though there are already huge differences in team’s history due to expansion. It just makes sense to take a team’s history from their origination as a major league club. Perhaps with the recent league changes by the Milwaukee and Houston clubs, MLB will be more open to recognizing records from teams that changed leagues in the past.

One thing interesting was that the information I saw on the Dodgers tying the Cardinals with 19 pennants, which was on an ESPN crawl, means that they are only counting Dodger pennants since 1901 (or since 1916 in their case). They won NL pennants in 1890, 1899 and 1900 as members of the National League, which gives them 22 with the 19 won from 1916 through 2017. Maybe the crawl had a “modern era” qualifier. I just happened to catch a glimpse of it on a television at the local gym where I work out, so I may have not gotten all of it.

Still wish MLB would have some of the games in the day. It will never happen of course as money overrides sentiment. But I think it would be cool if the two “get away” games, games 2 and 5, were day games.

Very interesting news out of LA. Rather than join his Dodgers teammates for the playoffs, injured veteran 1B Adrian Gonzalez took his family on an European vacation. He is under contract for 2018 as well.